THE Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution initiated and led by Chairman Mao is a great political revolution carried out under the conditions of socialism by the proletariat against the bourgeoisie and all other exploiting classes; it is a deep-going, great social change. It has smashed the dream of imperialism, revisionism and all reaction to restore capitalism in China. Not reconciled to their defeat, Lin Piao and his sworn followers picked up the sinister Confucian banner of "restraining oneself and returning to the rites" and viciously libelled the excellent situation brought about by the Great Cultural Revolution as "ridden with crises" and a "stagnation and standstill." They tried in vain to negate the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and realize their criminal scheme of restoring capitalism. But slanders, after all, cannot conceal the true state of affairs. Numerous facts eloquently prove that "socialism is everywhere advancing triumphantly," that the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution "is absolutely necessary and most timely" and that this revolution is fine! Just from looking at the profound changes in our plant since the Great Cultural Revolution began, we workers rejoice from the bottom of our hearts. Ours is a plant set up in the big leap forward year of 1958 to make special steel. Guided by Chairman Mao's revolutionary line, we members of the working class, in the revolutionary spirit of "maintaining independence and keeping the initiative in our own hands and relying on our own efforts," finished building a big converter shop in 32 days. By 1960, our plant had produced over 50 times as much steel as in 1958 and varieties exceeded 200. Then, in 1962-65, steel output plummeted due to interference and sabotage by Liu Shao-chi's counterrevolutionary revisionist line. This revisionist line was criticized and repudiated during the Great Cultural Revolution and the enterprise once again returned to the socialist orientation so that its leadership firmly rested in the hands of the proletariat. Since then, the situation in both revolution and production has become better and better.

Revisionist Line in Running Enterprises Criticized

Due to interference by the revisionist line, many of the rules and regulations in our plant before the Great Cultural Revolution were irrational. Instead of encouraging the workers to display the spirit of being masters of the country, these rules and regulations kept their socialist initiative in check and made it difficult for them to do things in the style of socialist co-operation. In the course of the Great Cultural Revolution we criticized the revisionist line in running enterprises, revised the irrational rules and regulations and worked out new ones step by step and put them on a sound basis. Proletarian politics were put in command; the masses of workers, whose consciousness of class struggle and the two-line struggle has been raised, now take an active part in management of the enterprise and, whenever a problem comes up, they can have their say and join the leadership in resolving the matter at the proper time. The revolutionary new order has promoted the development of production. Take, for instance, the new system in which the quality of products is examined by both the masses and the professionals. Under it everyone plays a part in keeping up the quality of products. Our plant's steel output has gone up considerably since 1971. In 1973, the percentage of up-to-standard steel ingots produced was 99.2.

Workers who are masters of the enterprise not only act consciously in accordance with the new rules and regulations but also keep an eye on preventing any unexpected "slips." There was one old worker who, after returning home from a night shift, suddenly thought about a batch of rolled steel and had doubts whether the products of different varieties were separated and put in different piles. He got up from bed immediately and rushed to the plant to make a check-up. He returned home to sleep only after he was satisfied that things were in perfect order.

Cadres Educated

Under the influence of Liu Shao-chi's counterrevolutionary revisionist line, the cadre-worker relationship before the Great Cultural Revolution was not one of fish and water as it should be, but one in which the cadres "oversee" and the workers "do the job." In the Great Cultural Revolution we revolted against the capitalist-roaders, cleared away the handful of bad elements who had sneaked into the ranks of the cadres and helped those cadres who had made mistakes to mend their ways through education. The Great Cultural Revolution educated and tempered the cadres; a revolutionary committee was established to run the plant and leading bodies at all levels were composed of old, middle-aged and young cadres. Many old cadres have regained their revolutionary youthfulness and a number of workers and young people have taken up leading posts to add new blood to the contingent of cadres and make it more vigorous than ever before. The principle of "unity between officers and men" which has been the fine tradition of our Party and army is being carried out in our plant. We actively support cadres when they do the right thing by implementing Chan-man Mao’s revolutionary line; when they make mistakes and have shortcomings, we do not hesitate to criticize them and warm-heartedly help them implement Chairman Mao's revolutionary line in real earnest. One incident at the No. 8 workshop is an example of this. As a result of a change in the specifications of the kind of steel it was to make, a ring-type furnace costing a lot of money to build had been lying idle for a long time. At the same time, the workshop badly needed a new heating furnace because of expanding production. Some people in the workshop suggested that they themselves reconstruct the ring-type furnace into a heating furnace the workshop needed. The cadres of the workshop, however, didn't think the shop alone could do the job and wanted to scrap the furnace. When the workers learnt of this, they took the cadres to task: "You people often repudiate in words the idealist conception of history which denies that the people are the makers of history. But why don't you consult us workers on an important issue like this? To scrap the ring-type furnace means throwing away a huge amount of the people's wealth; it also means throwing away the principle of hard struggle, diligence and thrift in building our country. So, scrapping or not scrapping the furnace actually represents a struggle between the two lines." The workers' criticism was a good lesson for the cadres who made self-criticisms at a mass meeting and accepted the workers' proposals. The ring-type furnace was reconstructed into a heating furnace in two months. A new type of cadre-worker relationship founded on socialist principles has been constantly perfected since the Great Cultural Revolution began. This is especially so in the current in-depth development of the movement to criticize Lin Piao and Confucius. Both workers and cadres, now with ease of mind, fight hand in hand.

Upholding Proletarian Ideology

Under the guidance of Chairman Mao's revolutionary line, we workers have in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution made full use of the weapons of airing our views freely, writing big-character posters and holding great debates to criticize and repudiate revisionism in unprecedented breadth and depth, thus continually upholding proletarian ideology. In the past, swindlers like Liu Shao-chi and Lin Piao frenziedly obstructed us workers from studying and grasping Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, the most powerful ideological weapon of the proletariat. In the Great Cultural Revolution and the current movement to criticize Lin Piao and Confucius, our enthusiasm in studying works by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin and Chairman Mao's works has soared. In conformity with Chairman Mao's instruction to "read and study conscientiously and have a good grasp of Marxism," the more than 1,600 groups or shifts in our plant all study works by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin and Chairman Mao's works. Some have read the four volumes of Selected Works of Mao Tsetung as well as six other Marxist-Leninist works, including the Manifesto of the Communist Party, while a number of young workers have read dozens of Marxist-Leninist works in a systematic way. Thanks to the study, we have raised our political consciousness and theoretical level and enhanced our ability to distinguish genuine from sham Marxism. With the line as the key link, we have in the past few years continually carried out revolutionary mass criticism and made great efforts to tackle the class struggle in the ideological field, thus bringing about the dominance of proletarian ideology in our plant. WY found some time ago a few bad elements and those whose minds were seriously tainted with bourgeois ideology trying to corrupt our young workers bespreading poisonous bourgeois ideas. So we carried out revolutionary mass criticism to get rid of bourgeois iniquities and foster proletarian ideology. At the same time, ideological and political work among the young workers was intensified by organizing 50 groups to study works by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin and Chairman Mao's works and 49 youth shock brigades in production. This year, as the movement to criticize Lin Piao and Confucius was unfolded, workers in our plant took it upon themselves to act as the main force in this struggle. "In making steel," they said, "we must remove the phosphorus and sulphur; to make revolution, we must criticize Lin Piao and Confucius." In a very short time the struggle to criticize Lin Piao and Confucius in our plant grew into a revolutionary mass movement. This, too, fully shows that the masses of workers, tempered in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, have raised to a considerably high level their consciousness of class struggle and the two-line struggle and of continuing the revolution.

Production Promoted

Chairman Mao teaches us that, in socialist society, there are both harmony and contradiction between the relations of production and the productive forces, and between the superstructure and the economic base. He pointed out: "But survivals of bourgeois ideology, certain bureaucratic ways of doing things in our state organs and defects in certain links in our state institutions are in contradiction with the socialist economic base." The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution has further consolidated and developed the socialist economic base and brought the socialist relations of production to greater perfection; the Party's centralized leadership has been strengthened and the various principles of the proletarian way of running enterprises are being put into practice. The result is that we workers have never been so militant and daring as today. And this has greatly promoted the development of production. Production in our plant in the past few years has advanced in great strides virtually without any increase in manpower, equipment or factory buildings. Compared with 1965, the year before the start of the Great Cultural Revolution, last year's steel output more than doubled and high-grade alloy steel products trebled; the varieties of steel rose to over 600 and those of rolled steel with different specifications reached more than 11,000. The aggregate profits turned over to the state in the eight years from 1966 to 1973 were nearly three times the value of the plant's present fixed assets. Output of electric furnace steel for the first quarter of this year registered another 10 per cent increase over the corresponding period in 1973 while that of rolled steel went up by 24 per cent. These major production achievements fully testify to the fact that "the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is a powerful motive force for the development of the social productive forces in our country."